


Return

by pulangaraw



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-03
Updated: 2009-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:30:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulangaraw/pseuds/pulangaraw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Future fic, set after s3 of Torchwood.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Return

**Author's Note:**

> Future fic, set after s3 of Torchwood.

_“How do you do it, Doctor? How do you keep on living?”_

_“I run. I run and I don't look back.”_

###

It has been fifty two years since Captain Jack Harkness has last set foot on planet Earth. A lot has changed in those years, but mostly Earth has stayed the same. It reminds him again how slow change happens within humanity. Even with all their adaptability, humans don't ever actually change.

Jack stands in front of the Millennium Centre in Cardiff and looks at the place that he once called home. They rebuilt the monument after it had been destroyed in the explosion. His explosion. He's died so many times since then, but he can still remember the feeling of being ripped apart. It isn't a nice memory.

Fifty years isn't a long time in Jack's life, but he's buried the memories of those last days on Earth deep within his consciousness, and he is a bit afraid of what digging them up would entail. But he's made his decision when he asked the Doctor to drop him in Cardiff and he would go through with it. He owes it to her. To them.

He find her in the Atlantic View Care Centre, only a stone throw away from the old Hub. When he asks for her at the front desk, the nurse directs him to the small garden at the back.

He spots her immediately. She is sitting on a bench near the edge of the garden, looking out over the harbour. Her hair is white now and much shorter. She looks small, almost frail, sitting there on the bench, a woollen poncho wrapped around her shoulders.

“Hello Gwen,” he says quietly when he reaches the bench.

She doesn't look at him at first, just closes her eyes and smiles a little. He sits down beside her.

“Hello Jack,” she answers eventually, the round welsh vowels washing over him like a warm wave. Her voice is still the same.

She turns her head then and looks at him. “You came back.”

It's not a question, so he doesn't answer. Just looks at her and catalogues all the changes that age has left. Her face is less rounded, the skin thinner and wrinkled. But her lips are still full and her eyes still look so big and innocent. Just like the day he met her. He wants to reach out, stroke her cheek, play with her hair, but he doesn't.

“You haven't changed.” She does what he can't, reaches out and strokes her fingertips down his cheek.

He smiles. “There's a few more greys here and there,” he says with a wink. It makes her laugh.

After that they just sit for a while and look out over Cardiff. Getting used to each other's presence again.

Gwen is the first to speak again. “Rhys died three years ago. We had a good life, him and me. He stayed with me even though he sometimes thought I was a bit crazy. We have three children. The first one, Suzie, she's a lawyer. She lives in London now and she's got a daughter of her own. They come and visit me now and then. Geraint is the second one. Him and his wife have two kids, twins. They were my first grandchildren. Geraint's a policeman here in Cardiff. And then there's Jack, he's the youngest,” She laughs at Jack's surprised expression. “Rhys picked that name, I swear. He's working with UNIT in New York. I guess all those alien bedside stories Rhys used to tell him have something to do with it.”

Jack laughs. “Sounds like you've had a great life.”

They are silent for a while.

“I waited for you, Jack. All those years, I waited for you to come back. You showed me the wonders of the universe and then you just left. You ran away and left me behind.”

Jack looks out to the sea. “I asked the Doctor once how he does it. How he keeps on living when everything around him dies. You know what he said? He said: 'I run. I run and I don't look back.' Sometimes, running away is all you can do to keep going.”

Gwen gently takes his hand. “But you came back to me.”

###

_“Sometimes I wonder if I've become a monster. Are we monsters, Doctor?”_

_“I don't know.”_

###

Jack stopped believing in gods the day his family died. He thought that if gods existed, surely they would not permit so much pain and sadness to exist in the universe.

Now he's not so sure any more. Sometimes he thinks that the gods just don't care. That's what makes them gods. Because caring is human. Every creature that knows they must die one day must care. They're inseparable. Two sides of a coin. It's what makes life bearable.

He goes to Langham House a week after he arrives. Of course, Alice is long gone and he has no intention of trying to find her. There are some things that cannot be forgiven. He knows that better than most.

It's a bit silly to come here, but he can't help it. Over time, the pain and guilt have faded into the background and that just makes him feel more guilty.

He often wishes he could forget. That he could just stop feeling. He wonders if guilt is like a wound – if it's too deep it will kill you and nothing hurts any more. Except, that's not how it works for him. He just keeps on living, and he must never forget.

In 1965 they told him they needed someone who doesn't care.

He stands in front of Langham House, the house where his family once lived, and he swears to himself that he'll never stop caring.

###

_“If you could, would you bring them back?”_

_“I can't.”_

###

He visits their graves three days after his return to Earth. It takes all his courage to enter the cemetery. But Gwen made him promise and he can't stand to disappoint her. Not again.

They're all there. Three plaques for Suzie, Tosh and Owen. Their bodies – stored in the Torchwood Hub – had been destroyed in the explosion. But the stones remain, just like the memories. Someone, probably Gwen, has put a fourth plaque next to them. It only has a name on it – Gray. His body, too, had been destroyed in the explosion. All hope gone.

Jack looks down at the stones and he can see them, those four. As clearly as if it had been yesterday. And behind them he can see all the others. All those lives that were lost. All those loves he buried.

He almost doesn't take the few steps to the next grave.

He kneels and lays down the flowers he brought. He strokes the cold stone surface, traces the name edged into it.

“Ianto,” he whispers.

###

_“Tell me Doctor, is it worth it? Are they really worth it?”_

_“Yes.”_

###

He stays until the funeral is over. Not because he owes it to her, but because he wants to. There have been so many violent deaths in his past. So many died before their time. It's good to remember that death also comes naturally. To remember that it's not always full of shock and despair, but a part of life.

Gwen has had a good life. A long life. And judging by the amount of people that show up to say their last good-byes it's been a life full of love and friendship.

He meets her family, children and grandchildren. They greet him like a long-lost friend. He looks at them and burns their faces into his memory. In years to come, he will remember their names, just like he will remember their parents' names and the names of all the other people he knew and loved and lost.

At night, he whispers their names into the darkness, like a prayer.

 

_Gray, Beth, Rosie, Algy, Tom, Suzie, Estelle, Owen, Tosh, Ianto, Stephen, Alice, Gwen, Rhys, Martha, Suzie, Jack..._

 

End


End file.
